Evening Brief: Trudeau warns U.S. against restricting trade with Canada

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gives an update on the government's measures to help Canadians with the effects of COVID-19 pandemic from Rideau Cottage in Ottawa on Mar. 23, 2020. Andrew Meade/iPolitics

Tonight’s Evening Brief is brought to you by the Association of Canadian Port Authorities. Sunday is Western Hemisphere Ports Day, a day to recognize the efforts of ports, workers and supply chain partners to keep goods moving and Canadians safe.

Good evening, readers.

The Lead

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday issued a warning to the Trump administration to keep the Canada-U.S. border open for the trade of essential goods after 3M said it is being forced by the White House to stop exporting N95 face masks.

Trudeau said blocking trade to Canada could backfire and “end up hurting Americans as much as it hurts anybody else.”

“The level of integration between our economies goes both ways across the border. We are receiving essential supplies from the United States, but the United States also receives essential supplies and products – and indeed, health-care professionals – from Canada every single day,” he said.

If Ontario maintains public health measures, the province could still see between 3,000 and 15,000 deaths from COVID-19 over the full course of the pandemic, health officials revealed on Friday — as Canada’s most populous province lifted the curtain on the data informing officials’ decisions.

Prime Minister Trudeau said the federal government has reached an agreement for Amazon Canada to deliver masks, face shields, gowns, ventilators and test kits to areas hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Canadian Blood Services is enhancing personal protective equipment use protocols at its donation facilities after a group of unionized employees demanded to be provided with masks and gloves while on the job. The move comes as health care workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic are becoming increasingly vocal with their concerns about a shortage of protective gear.

Gary Kobinger, a key player in the race to find vaccines to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, says the lives lost and trillions spent on urgent health care and economic support are a “warning shot.”

“This virus is not what I would call a dangerous virus at all,” Kobinger said in an interview. “This is a great warning shot. It’s just a small image, a picture, of what could really happen if we had a mortality rate of 30 per cent.”

Publishers and media experts are urging the federal government to offer enhanced financial supports for Canada’s news media sector, where a long-standing trend of declining revenue has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The industry is really going to run out of cash very soon,” said John Hinds, CEO of newspaper advocacy group News Media Canada.

Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough says Ottawa needs to co-ordinate with the provinces and territories on providing financial supports for Canadians hurting from the COVID-19 pandemic to “maximize” the effects of their efforts.

The minister told iPolitics in an exclusive interview that the federal government must stay informed of the measures put in place in jurisdictions across the country during the pandemic to better co-ordinate services and avoid replication.

As COVID-19 deaths surge in his state, New York’s governor says he will use his authority to seize ventilators and protective gear from private hospitals and companies that aren’t using them as he complains that states are competing against each other for vital equipment in bidding wars.

“If they want to sue me for borrowing their excess ventilators to save lives, let them sue me,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. He added that he will eventually return the equipment or compensate the owners. (Associated Press)

The U.S.’s decade-long record of continuous job growth came to a halt on Friday as the unemployment rate rose for the first time since 2010. The country’s Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that unemployment rose to 4.4 per cent in March, up from a 50-year low of 3.5 per cent in February, as the U.S. lost 701,000 jobs. (The Guardian)

Staying at home this upcoming weekend is an instruction and “not a request,” the U.K.’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Friday, as he updated the country on the coronavirus.

Hancock said that while warm weather was forecast in some areas this weekend “the disease is still spreading.” Meanwhile, England’s chief nursing officer Ruth May paid tribute to two nurses who have died from the disease, asking residents to “stay at home for them.” (BBC News)

Prince Charles on Friday remotely opened the new Nightingale Hospital in London, a temporary facility that is set to treat 4,000 people who have contracted COVID-19.

Charles said he was “enormously touched” to be asked to open the temporary facility at the ExCel centre in east London and paid tribute to all involved, including military personnel, in its “spectacular and almost unbelievable” nine-day construction. (AP)